kabarsula 1000 Mile Travel Group co-founder Nicola Veltman departs bandar SLOT INDONESIA

1000 Mile Travel Group co-founder Nicola Veltman has announced she is leaving the business after nearly 12 years, handing the baton to her team.

In a LinkedIn post, Veltman said it was “with a heavy heart” that she was saying goodbye to what she called her “baby before the babies”.

While her first job was as a freelance travel writer, that role exposed her to the industry and led Veltman to her first role at Flight Centre in Melbourne. She and co-founder Ben Ross then launched the 1000 Mile Travel Group business in 2014 as a two-person startup, operating from a kitchen table, when she was pregnant with her first child. Veltman said the pair set out to bridge a gap in the travel industry, and went on to launch the host agency in Australia, the UK and the US.

She thanked Marnie Eden as the business’s first independent contractor, and credited general managers Lauren Gray, Alex Locke, Christy Shafer and Mahala Summers, who she said “grew to run these businesses”.

Veltman also thanked head office staff past and present, travel advisors and business owners, corporate and leisure clients, and partners, many of whom she now counts as friends.

“1000MTG will always hold a special place in my heart, and I’ll keep championing everyone within it,” she said.

Veltman did not reveal her next move, saying she looked forward to “sharing where my next journey starts” and reconnecting with industry contacts over the coming months.

Background

1000MTG was founded by Ross and Veltman in Melbourne and entered the UK market in 2017. The pair launched it to give corporate travel advisors the tools, technology and support they needed to thrive.

Corporate Travel Management (CTM) acquired the group in July 2022, with the terms of the transaction not disclosed. Ross and Veltman then relocated to Denver to establish the brand in North America and integrate CTM’s leisure host agency, MTravel. The combined network was set to serve more than 750 independent contractors selling leisure, corporate and group travel.

The group marked its 10th anniversary in early February 2025, with its first Australia-UK conference in Hong Kong.

Ross stepped back from the business to launch Adamaz, a company focused on agency acquisition and succession planning, while Veltman remained at the helm of the host agency.